Here is my proof:
Draft One: in this rough draft my focus was on weight and body issues of all kinds. How drained one gets of dealing with them and how numb the reactions are. Take the green highlighted section of the poem. These lines are really weak though they strive to encourage alliteration they actually confuse and are a little too ungrammatical. The yellow line is the only line I kept between all the drafts. It was the most powerful image for me. The idea of struggling with carrying weight (in this poem its a pun on carrying emotional and physical weight) is really emotive. This is when I began developing the meaning of Draft Three.
McDonald’s Food
The
wild winds and their incessant crying have managed to dry me of all
sensitivity.
My
coldness lay on the floor like a dead body loose and free,
as
if it were tears in the wind.
Even
though, I did not ask the tears to come to me
and
bespeak spoken words forsaken of all thought and heart.
I
gave up all rights to crying,
when
the wind and I collided over what
it
felt could and can’t be carried.
So
now my coldness lay on the floor like dried meat
much
like my jumbo sized body;
McDonalds
would sell me for free.
Draft Three: The green section here is beautiful in theory and not in meaning. Jolt followed by loose and free confuses the image of a cat scurrying away from a loud sound. The red section is extremely powerful but does not go well with the green section, its meaning is lost in the poem which is trying to play on two images the cats scurrying away and threads being tugged at. The yellow section is key to the poems meaning as it reflects that humanity is demanding and we struggle to fit into its demands which are a heavy weight to carry.
The Pain of Carrying it All
my
pain lies
loose
and free
like
the jolt of
cats
and their
green
eyes
making
memorable
fear:
strung together by
golden
spindles.
it’s
no surprise
cats
can carry it all:
the
streets
their
hunger
and
humanities
incessant
nagging.
There
is no room
for
the clawed sting
of
failure though,
cats
cry.
i
gave up because of pain
but
when I turned
to
watching cats
graze
the fine line between
Sorrow
and liberty
I
followed
Holding
tightly the string that says
what
can and can’t be carried.
Draft Six: The first stanza in yellow is far more coherent than in draft three. Cats flight can be loose and free, while pain symbolizes struggle and is also free. The latter indicates a tension in the poem between pain and freedom, which shouldn't be painful. Both the stringing of threads and the cats scurrying away are presented together in the first stanza, so the complexity of the images and metaphors is evident. Plus I added life a key link to the concept of humanity. Mind you its still a little confusing. Is it the eyes that string life or the cat's flight? This ambiguity however gives the poem an ominous feel which adds depth to the meaning. The red lines expand on the cat image which is now a reflection of life again paralleling the last three lines of the first stanza. The orange lines bring back the reoccurring image of thread as life also. The light blue section adds a layer of complexity to the cat image. Now the cats cry out of confusion between being free and being afraid of the cost of freedom. The last two lines of the poem are a reflection of the point that humans cave, they are weak and that's ok because they are also strong. You see the thread is fine but it questions what can and cant be carried just as man asks these questions. There is no answer, this is a subjective poem. And yes it took years to write.
The Pain of Carrying it All
my
pain lies
loose
and free
like
the flight of
cats
and their
green
eyes
stringing
life together
with
golden spindles.
there
is no room
for
the clawed sting
of
failure,
life's incessant
nagging.
tugging
at the threads
of
it all,
cats
too cry as they
graze
the fine line between
Fear
and liberty
I
follow
Holding
tightly the string that says
what
can and can’t be carried.
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